Many techniques are available to users today to find information on the world wide web (“web”). For example, users often use web browsers and/or search engines to find information of interest. A user may enter a search query into a search box of a browser and the browser may submit the search query to a search engine. The search engine may identify documents that match the search query, rank the documents based on various factors, and return a ranked list of documents to the user. The user may select a document from the list and request the document. A browser may retrieve the requested document and display the document to the user in a browser window.
Some search engines offer statistics about fast rising topics (also referred to “popular topics” or “hot topics”), among users as a whole, as a tool to facilitate user information discovery. Many of these popular topics, however, will be of little interest to any one particular user.